President Bush next week will request a $439.3 billion Defense Department budget for 2007, a nearly 5 percent increase over this year, according to senior Pentagon officials and documents obtained Thursday by The Associated Press.The spending plan would include $84.2 billion for weapons programs, a nearly 8 percent increase, including billions of dollars for fighter jets, Navy ships, helicopters and unmanned aircraft. The total includes a substantial increase in weapons spending for the Army, which will get $16.8 billion in the 2007 budget, compared with $11 billion this year.Senior defense officials provided the totals on condition of anonymity because the defense budget will not be publicly released until Monday. The figures did not include spending for wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which the Bush administration said Thursday would total $120 billion for 2006.... http://www.msnbc.msn.com

BUSH had plans to lure Saddam Hussein into war by flying an aircraft over Iraq painted in UN colours in the hope he would shoot it down, a book reveals. Bush told Tony Blair of the extraordinary plan during a meeting in the White House on Jan 31, 2003, 6 weeks before the war started, according to an updated version of Lawless World by Philippe Sands, a human rights lawyer. He says the President made it clear that he had already decided to go to war, despite still pressing for a UN resolution. “The US was thinking of flying U2 reconnaissance aircraft with fighter cover over Iraq, painted in UN colours. If Saddam fired on them, he would be in breach,” the book reports Bush telling Blair at the meeting. If the U2 idea was a serious proposal, it would have made sense only if the spy plane was ordered to fly at an altitude within range of Iraqi missiles. Mr Bush’s reference in the recorded conversation to the U2 being escorted by fighter aircraft indicates that that is what he had in mind...http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-2023128,00.html

For the past week I've been tracking my girlfriend through her mobile phone. I can see exactly where she is, at any time of day or night, within 150 yards, as long as her phone is on. It has been very interesting to find out about her day. Now I'm going to tell you how I did it.First, though, I ought to point out, that my girlfriend is a journalist, that I had her permission ("in principle ...") and that this was all in the name of science, bagging a Pulitzer and paying the school fees. You have nothing to worry about, or at least not from me. But back to business. First I had to get hold of her phone. It wasn't difficult. We live together and she has no reason not to trust me, so she often leaves it lying around. And, after all, I only needed it for five minutes. I unplugged her phone and took it upstairs to register it on a website I had been told about. It looks as if the service is mainly for tracking stock and staff movements: ...http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,1699080,00.html

A Republican majority in the Tennessee Senate cannot vote to remove a newly elected Democratic senator unless it first develops standards for protecting voters' rights, a federal judge ruled yesterday.Ruling on a lawsuit filed by Sen. Ophelia Ford and five voters from her Memphis district, Judge Bernice Donald acknowledged that the Senate was the "final arbiter" of the election. But she said the Senate could not toss out the results without developing consistent standards for judging invalid ballots.The Senate also has to protect voters' rights, including "adequate hearings" for voters whose eligibility is challenged....http://www.tennessean.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060202/NEWS0206/602020386/1001

Iraqi efforts to form a government are only now beginning in earnest nearly two months after key elections, and the hard bargaining could take weeks if not months to produce a new leadership. That could delay the eventual drawdown of U.S. forces. American diplomats are putting intense pressure on the Iraqis to agree quickly on a government to include Shiites, Kurds and Sunni Arabs, the community that forms the backbone of the insurgency. Until a new government is in place, it is unlikely the United States and its coalition partners can move to the next step pulling out some of the 160,000-strong multinational force. The top U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. George Casey, has said he may recommend cutbacks this spring....http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=1572792&CMP=OTC-RSSFeeds0312

Tony Blair told President George Bush that he was "solidly" behind US plans to invade Iraq before he sought advice about the invasion's legality and despite the absence of a second UN resolution, according to a new account of the build-up to the war published today. A memo of a two-hour meeting between the two leaders at the White House on January 31 2003 - nearly two months before the invasion - reveals that Mr Bush made it clear the US intended to invade whether or not there was a second resolution and even if UN inspectors found no evidence of a banned Iraqi weapons programme. "The diplomatic strategy had to be arranged around the military planning", the president told Mr Blair. The prime minister is said to have raised no objection. He is quoted as saying he was "solidly with the president and ready to do whatever it took to disarm Saddam". The disclosures come in a new edition of Lawless World, by Phillipe Sands, a QC and professor of international law ...http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,1700879,00.html